Congresswoman Allyson Schwartz, Democratic candidate for Governor, talked with reporters at the The Pennsylvania State Capitol newsroom on Tuesday, November 12, 2013 about transportation legislation, and also fielded questions on a variety of other topics including the 2014 gubernatorial race.
Photo by: Christine Baker | cbaker@pennlive.com
(Christine Baker | cbaker@pennlive.com)

So here's a sure sign it's campaign season: The bumper crop of Democratic hopefuls looking to send Gov. Tom Corbett back to the private sector are showing up at the state Capitol to needle the Republican governor on the top issues of the day.

Thus did U.S. Rep. Allyson Schwartz, whose putative front-runner status was reinforced with a well-timed poll today, find herself in the Capitol pressroom, calling on lawmakers in the House and Senate to pass a transportation funding package this fall.

"Time is getting short to do what needs to be done," Schwartz said, as she stealthily tracked the obvious to its lair before throttling it to death. "We're talking about the basic maintenance needs of this state."

The Montgomery County lawmaker was in town to meet with House Democrats on, one presumes, her campaign and her policy ideas. And, judging by this morning's conversation, she has no shortage of them.

Schwartz nearly wonked reporters into submission, jumping from transportation to schools to Medicaid expansion and back to economic development with a speed only an MSNBC viewer could love.

And, oh yeah, she also found the time to squeeze in more than a few pops and Corbett, who she blistered for failing to get a funding package across the goal line before now. But Schwartz, a former state senator, knows full well how hard it is to pass legislation even when your own party has the big chair.

Legislative leaders from the four caucuses have spent the last couple of weeks trying to reach agreement on a $2.3 billion to $2.4 billion highway and bridge bill that they can send to Corbett by year's end.

The General Assembly returned to session on Tuesday, kicking off the 10 scheduled voting days that stand between them and yet another extended holiday recess.

It relies on a "modest" 5 percent severance tax on Marcellus shale natural gas drillers for its funding. She also wants to use the cash from the severance tax to pay for public education, according to her official campaign website.

Schwartz played it carefully when she was asked about a Republican-led push to update Pennsylvania's prevailing wage law as a precondition for any funding package. The law hasn't been updated since it went on the books in 1963 and proponents say the savings from such an update could be used to pay for more road and bridge projects.

"I don't want to second-guess" legislative Democrats who are in on the negotiations, she said.

Schwartz allowed that language lifting the cap on the state's wholesale gasoline tax (which is paid by gas stations) could be passed along to motorists in the form of higher gas prices. She used the question as an opportunity to plug her severance tax-based funding plan.

And, asked whether a win on transportation funding could end up making it harder for her party's eventual nominee to win next year, Schwartz said the Corbett administration has a "long list of failures" for challengers to highlight.

But Schwartz and the rest of the pack of hopefuls were still running behind the nearly one-third (34 percent) of respondents who are still undecided. The poll of 649 Democratic primary voters had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.85 percent.

The state Republican Party pounced on the poll results, releasing a statement on Tuesday afternoon saying, that with the high number of undecided voters, Schwartz "shouldn’t be too proud of her frontrunner status."

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